38 replies to this topic

[littlejohny]

Allright, I recently got myself a washing machine motor for a ball mill.
The problem is that I don't know how to connect it to main power, It has 5 wires coming out the side of the motor. The colour of the wires are Black, Red, Brown, Dark blue, and a Brown wire with a black line spiralling down it. So what do I do .
I thought maybe that I use the red and black wires for +/- is this right or wrong.

[karlfoxman]

Allright, I recently got myself a washing machine motor for a ball mill.
The problem is that I don't know how to connect it to main power, It has 5 wires coming out the side of the motor. The colour of the wires are Black, Red, Brown, Dark blue, and a Brown wire with a black line spiralling down it. So what do I do .
I thought maybe that I use the red and black wires for +/- is this right or wrong.

There is no +/- as it will be an AC motor, i guess it depends on how many windings it has. If you have a multimeter try finding the pins that go to the windings. I would recomend searching the net to find wiring diagrams or pinouts, be careful of mains voltages! I dont know if washing machine motors are 3 phase as i have never looked at one. My ball mill uses a 3 phase motor and if yours is too you will need to join certain windings together and use capacitors.

[Andrew]

Washing machine motors are very complicated, you would need the driving circuitry from the washing machine as well. The only way to use such motors is to interface the motor control module.

They are capable of several thousand rpm (i.e. 5000+), something that is not posible with pure mains run motors. They can also run in a polorised way. Hence the need to be very complicated

[BigBang]

If the motor has 5 wires it is almost certainly a single phase induction motor, which almost all household appliances use. These motors have 2 windings, so 1 pair of wires for each winding, and the 5th wire will be the earth wire. It is quite simple with the use of a multimeter, using the resistance range, to work out which wires are which.

BUT, unless your electronics is up to scatch, i'd leave this motor alone, AC motors are not straight forward and often need capacitors to start them from standstill, and other circuitry to keep them running. Also, as Karl mentioned, playing around with mains voltages can be very dangerous.

I recommend you stick with low voltage DC motors, much safer and simpler to use.

Edited by BigBang, 04 February 2006 - 03:26 PM.

[Damp Squib]

Dump the washing machine motor they'r pretty useless,get a tumble dryer motor as an alternative to using a DC motor such as windscreen wiper motor

[littlejohny]

Dump the washing machine motor they'r pretty useless,get a tumble dryer motor as an alternative to using a DC motor such as windscreen wiper motor

Well isn't this funny I just opened an old tumble dryer to look at the motor and its exactly the same as the one I already have from the washing machine,the wiring looks alot more easy to remove though this would be good so I could set a time for my ball mill to stop exactly after 3 hours, apart from the fact I cant have the dryer.

[Tim]

I'm probably wrong but....littlejohnny your from australia arn't you??

Everywhere on rec.pyro recommends washing machine motors and i'm guessing they are reffering to top load machines.

In the UK however the frontload is more popular. I have a front load washer and it sounds like a jet engine and goes really fast....But our old top load washer was a hell of a lot slower.

So if your motor is from a front load....Its too fast but if it's from the usual australian topload it should be ok if that is what is usually recommended.

Edited by Tim, 05 February 2006 - 09:55 AM.

[littlejohny]

yes its a top load washing machine but I'm not up to doing the electrics on it so theres no point, I still might have a go at the fan motor I have for another ball mill I attempted its a 50W but it gets so damn hot after 20 mins of running I'll try gearing it up but it will probably be to slow then .

[Tim]

I'm currently buliding a ball mill from a pedestal fan motor. Except i just took apart a full pedestal fan i got from the dump for $3 AU.

Sadly i was unable to get pulleys and belts so now it has to me a direct drive. I will see if not adding grip to the rollers or jar will alow for enough slip so that the jar turns at a slower speed.

Basic design..... I used cloth tape and wound it around the motor shaft until the galvanised steel pole would fit snuggly over it and then put a little bit of epoxy over the tape before sliding the pole over it. I used rather wide tape so it makes the pole as parallel as possible.

The Epoxy is drying right now so i will then need to construct the box to hold it and then go buy cabinet wheels as the secondary roller

[BigBang]

A good source of powerful 12v DC motors is a car scrap yard. All cars have several motors that are more than powerful enough to drive a mill. Also, it is very easy and cheap to get a 12volt power supply, e.g. a car battery charger wll do the job. Best motor to use is the windscreen wiper motor, coz they are designed to run for long periods.....avoid window motors, seat motors, etc. These are not desiged to run for long periods and tend to overheat if you run them at 12volts, but are OK if you run them at lower voltages (8-10v).

Andy

[Damp Squib]

yes its a top load washing machine but I'm not up to doing the electrics on it so theres no point, I still might have a go at the fan motor I have for another ball mill I attempted its a 50W but it gets so damn hot after 20 mins of running I'll try gearing it up but it will probably be to slow then .

Been there tried that my first ball mill was a 40w fan motor,you have to be carefull you must have some kind of fan cooling on the motor as the fan it was designed to drive draws ccool air passed the motor,I added a small fan on the end of the rotor to pass air over it,the mill has worked fine for ages in 4 hour loads,I only milled 20g - 50g batches though in a 500 cc container using both brass and steel media

I recently came into some antimony hardened lead,cast it into cylinders and loaded the container the ideal half fill was around 4lbs of lead media ,after just half an hour the motor deceased ,I'm now in the process of modifying the mill to take two 50w fan motors that drive both rollers as the container also was jumping when using just one narrow diameter drive roller

A tumbler or washing machine motor is to large for my needs and limits portability too much,I'll post some pics when finished it may give you some ideas,for the pulley system I have used small upright hover belts and large solid rubber wine bottle corks about 40mm diameter

[littlejohny]

I'm currently buliding a ball mill from a pedestal fan motor. Except i just took apart a full pedestal fan i got from the dump for $3 AU.

Sadly i was unable to get pulleys and belts so now it has to me a direct drive. I will see if not adding grip to the rollers or jar will alow for enough slip so that the jar turns at a slower speed.

Thats strange, rubbish dumps are not allowed to sell or give you any sort of electrical appliance for the fact that there could be faults in the wiring, electricuting yourself

my original mill didn't work real well it was a direct drive powered by a fan motor.
The new mill I am making is stolen from Alan's ball mill, I am using 4 skatebord bearings because there isn't anywhere I can get bearings around here. everything is srewed down. All I need is the belts and a motor

[Tim]

They have a cage full of tested electrical epquipment and the untested stuff is just by its self. But your not allowed to plug anything in in case its faulty. I was disappointeed when i took it home as it didnt work.....i Pulled it apart and oil the thing and spun it a bit and now its fine.

I'm now in the later stages of building it. I just need to secure the bracings and buy the cabinet wheels. Then i suppose i will need to put one of the other fans next to it to cool it down and also blow any leaking powder away which will save me the time of making a guard.

The other end of the shaft is not secoured to anything it just sits in a little thing to hold it up.

If it makes the jar jump alot how would i fix that??? Just buy a large bearing?

Tim

[littlejohny]

and also blow any leaking powder away which will save me the time of making a guard.

As far as I know I don't think your mill jar should leak what are you using for a milling jar.

The other end of the shaft is not secoured to anything it just sits in a little thing to hold it up.

If it makes the jar jump alot how would i fix that??? Just buy a large bearing?

Not a put down, but been there done that doesn't work. I recomend you get bearings and saddle brackets for your bars.

This is off topic, yesterday my electronics teacher commited suicide I was pretty shocked ,he just didn't seem like one of those people.

[Tim]

I finished the ball mill

It spins at a great speed when its empty and ungripped but i might put a layer of cloth tape over the jar. My jar is pvc and the fan is just a precaution incase it does leak but i will mainly use it to cool down the motor.

All up i spent about $32AU not including the epoxy and tape costs. I spent most of the money on the cabinet wheels ($4 each) and pvc end plugs ($5 each). The Steel shaft was a bit dear too at $7. The rest i got from the shed.

The thing looks like s**t but i dont care as long as it works.

But alas i still have to buy the media......I'm just going to get sinkers from crazy clarks. Hopefully wont cost TOO much to fill an 80mm ID tube.

And those suicide things kinda spook me. I just cant ever imagine being in a situation where u'd want to die....

Tim

Edited by Tim, 08 February 2006 - 11:51 AM.